Franco-British Cooperation in Africa and Europe

Gordon Cumming & Thibaud Harrois, "Franco-British Cooperation in Africa and Europe". In Proceedings of the Paris Institute for Advanced Study (Vol. 24), 2025.

Abstract

The United Kingdom and France have a long history of rivalry in Africa, which marked both the colonial and the early post colonial periods. In 1998, British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and French President, Jacques Chirac, launched the Saint Malo initiative II, pledging closer franco-British collaboration in Africa. While this agreement enjoyed some positive results, particularly in the security domain, it was largely undone by Brexit, which saw the UK and France eschewing cooperation and ploughing their own furrows in Africa. The re-election of American President Donald Trump has called into question many of the certainties of the multilateral rules based order, opening up new opportunities for Anglo-French cooperation in Africa and Europe, most notably in Ukraine.

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